Traci7642

Thanks so much! We really enjoyed making them together and everyone enjoyed receiving them. Happy Planning!

http://www.groupon.com/deals/vista-print-weddings?utm_medium=afl&utm_campaign=4219593&utm_source=rvs This groupon is still valid, but I think it expires later today. It's $25 for $100 worth of goodies at Vista Print.

My WC at Marival Residences told me this won't be a problem. So excited :-)

I'm so glad these worked out well for you! I already had them bookmarked to order my lip balm from them. I just don't see how you can beat the price!

Thanks a bunch! They really were inexpensive and really made a huge impact. I think if we would've just bought standard stamps and stuck them in the mail, they would've been just fine and saved us quite a bit of money.

Thanks a bunch! I have to mail one, but the other two girls loved them. Your wedding is right around the corner

I was in a DIY mood over the last week and knocked out my DIY STD DVD (those are in another thread) and also my DIY Will You Be My Bridesmaid Box. My girls all said yes and really enjoyed the boxes so I thought I'd share it with all of you. Inside the box was a bottle of vodka, samples of our wedding colors, notecards that contain information on 'the day', 'the girls', and 'the dress', some images of dresses that I like, and a set of earrings and a necklace for the big day. Here's the finished product Here are the contents that went inside each box Close up of the bridesmaid cards Cost breakdown - Wooden Initials (Hobby Lobby) - $3.13 Red Paper Filler (Hobby Lobby) - $1.79 Necklaces/Earrings (Charming Charlie) - $39.00 White paper for cards (Michaels) - $1.47 Roses for cover (Michaels) - $2.38 Boxes (Michaels) - $11.97 Paint (Michaels) - $0.99 Liquor - $6.00 Total for 3 boxes - $66.73

Hey Roxann My travel agent was on the phone with Marival all day yesterday and finally got them to agree to letting those that book with our promo code to still have the unlimited excursions. I told him that since I've had my wedding date set with them for well over a year that if they didn't honor the unlimited excursions that we would take our wedding elsewhere. I really hope you can make it work for you too! Honestly though, I probably would have stayed at Marival even if they didn't allow it because we've already sent out our STDs and have people booked and wouldn't want to hassle with switching everything again. I also checked out some other resorts and I still felt like Marival was a fair price even w/o the unlimited excursions. Let us know if it works out for you.

I've received such great feedback from my guests, that I thought I would share our STD. We had every intention of doing a luggage tag STD but after some discussions we decided to shift directions. We would always say "if people could just see how awesome this place is, they'd go" so we figured there would be no better way than to send a DVD STD. We created it in iMovie and it turned out so well. We started the DVD with a short video from my fiance and I explaining what they'd find on the DVD. We then followed that by a great video we found on YouTube about our resort and then followed that by all of our travel agent/pricing information. We have had two families contact us and say that they had no intention of going, but that after watching the DVD there is no way they can resist. I think it really paid off and would encourage everyone to think about it! We also decided to make DIY sleeves to make it a little more festive than a standard jewel case. We bought a really nice textured scrapbooking paper from Hobby Lobby and used a template that I found off the internet to make the CD sleeve. We then cut the slats to carry the ribbon through. We then used a glue gun to attach the ribbon to the inside and to glue the CD sleeve closed. The stickers we ordered from Zazzle with our monogram was the last addition. The last step we did was to purchase envelopes and shipping labels from Staples so that we could get them mailed off. Here is a price breakdown for our STD. We made and shipped 72 STDs. Sticker w/ monogram (from zazzle.com) - $22.09 DVDs 100 - $34.99 Blue Paper (Hobby Lobby - 40 sheets that we cut in half) - $13.50 Red Ribbon (Hobby Lobby) - $16.00 Envelopes (Staples) - $15.79 Shipping Labels (Staples) - $8.49 Postage ($0.86 each due to non-machinable CD - yikes!) - $60.26 Grand Total for 72 STDs = $171.12

I was on tripadvisor today, and saw a review that if you booked your travel after Jan 1st (all of my travelers) then you only get 1 free excursion for your stay instead of the previous unlimited. I'm extremely bummed by this and am contemplating changing locations. This was a huge selling point to me and all of our guests, especially for paying such a premium price. I have my TA working on it and hopefully they'll honor the previous unlimited excursions since we have had our wedding date set with them for over a year.

Somone a few pages back used her and her dress was AMAZING!! Because of her dress I decided to reach out to Wonderxue on Etsy too. I actually spoke with Yuan (I think that's her name at wonderxue) and got a quote on the dress I want and she is sending me a fabric samples.

I searched high and low and didn't find a thread for December 2013 brides so I thought I'd create one. This can be a great place for us to share ideas, plans, templates, stresses, etc. I'm getting married at Marival Residences in Puerto Vallarta. Right now we have our venue booked and finally secured group pricing with our travel agent. Today we bought some goodies to start working on our 2nd STD. Our 1st STD we sent a little less than 2 years in advance to get people to save (not sure that worked). For our 2nd STD, we are sending a DVD w/ a little video introduction from us, followed by a video of our resort (thanks youtube) and then pricing information from our travel agent. I'm also having my dress made and think I finally came up w/ a design that I like and sent off for fabric samples today. I'm really struggling though with photography. Dang, it's expensive!! I'm not sure if we should pay the money for a photographer in Mexico or try to negotiate w/ a local photographer for some sort of trade-off (pics for free vaca). Any suggestions? I hope this thread helps because I've found so much useful information on this site. Happy Planning!!